Good morning during the middle of Advent,

This morning I was listening to Parker Palmer, the Quaker educator and social critic, on NPR and he caused me to almost stop the car and merely listen to what he had to say. He talked about the fact that we have lived beyond our means and supported such a system for so long that the current crisis shoud be no surprise to anyone who honestly took stock (pun intended) of our situation. Interestingly, he moved it to the individual level and noted that unless we create a system of trust, whether it be in a classroom (and he specifically used this metaphor) or a school, all the money in the world will not make it successful. It is not hard to move this to a global space. We live in a world where we are so suspicious of each other and yet we, as has been painfully shown, are dependent on each other.

I have been thinking about it in my own daily life. My students are dependent on the fact that I show up to class and will give them the best I can; they are dependent on the hope that I will be fair and consistent in my grading throughout the semester. But I am also dependent on them, I am dependent on their effort in class and their willingness to listen and apply what they have heard so that the grade they earn (and that term is used purposely) will reflect both their ability and effort. When it does not happen, they become angry and want to blame me.

I am dependent on a university hierarchy and state legislature who values what I do on a daily basis and, in response, hopefully compensates me both monetarily and otherwise in a reasonable manner (that of course, is an entirely different discussion), but both the administration (more directly) and the state is dependent on the faculty and staff to work hard and honestly because without that ethic, retention is certainly affected. In spite of that, I am saddened by the fact that we (the corporate we) have become so numbers-driven that we have sold out to the business model of higher education. When my students are merely my customers, education-for the sake of learning-is irreversibly compromised. As we become increasingly budget driven, the quality of education intrinsically suffers. I certainly support providing opportunity and the concept of open enrollment, but this means many students require more attention. Yet, the impending promise of raised caps, loss of release time to inprove our skills, and hiring freezes while adding students is unethical at best. And the rocket scientist we do not need to figure out the result, would be shaking his or her head.

I wonder where it will all end. But I am not merely the victim, I am a perpetrator. I too have lived beyond my means, but believe it is time for a change. It is time to actually write a budget, both for my finances and my time (and to have the discipline to stick to it). All too often our individual greed gets in the way of our creating a sense of trust or a sense of community. I am reminded of my dissertation topic and Bonhoeffer’s emphasis on community. It might be time to read the little book Life Together once again. This was Bonhoeffer’s attempt to create community among his students in a situation where they were studying in an outlawed seminary.

How is it that we have such a dire situation in our state (an impending 5.4 billion dollar deficit) and I hear the same in other states. While this sounds frightening Republican to me, why is it that everyone deserves a handout for his or her greed? But is that contradictory to my point about community? I guess the question is complex. Where do we have corporate or communal responsibility for the other? To what degree do we have a responsibility to respond? To what degree does the individual have responsibility for his or her choices?

Over the past couple years I have used the term "entitlement" to describe the attitude I see as prevalent among the millenials. But from where did they learn such an attitude? Attitudes are not inherent, they are learned. It gets back to the title of this posting: individual greed. As I have noted in the past, my father was very wise. His admonishment rings true: "Michael, there are no free lunches." And so it is . . . we are so likely to want and demand. I want a reasonable salary; I want to be appreciated; I want to be treated with dignity and honesty; and, of course, there is the "I want" in that statement. All those things return us to the principle of community. If we are communal, we are dependent on reasonable interaction and mutual dependency. Sounds rather socialistic, but didn’t I just say I felt alarmingly Republican. There is the dilemma.

As we move through the Advent season, we are asked to reflect, to ponder. That has been my purpose in the post, to do precisely that. The reflection is always individual and I too have been guilty of my own greediness. Forgive me if you have been the recipient of that self-centeredness; Forgive me for those times I have torn down rather than built up a sense of community. Forgive me if I have been intolerant or uncaring.

Thank you for being part of my community, of my life and bless you for the blessings you have been to me. Thanks again for reading. 

Michael